


Going Live

by Diaphenia



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternative Universe - Lizzie Bennet Diaries, Cameras, Drabble, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 21:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,574
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1832110
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaphenia/pseuds/Diaphenia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“That Peeta Mellark is the most Capitol person I’ve ever met,” she spit out on the way home from the toasting.</p>
<p>Johanna laughed. “Listen, Kat, you’re an idiot.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Live

**Author's Note:**

  * For [swishywillow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/swishywillow/gifts).



> Swishywillow sent me _OMG is it too much to ask for a Katniss/Peeta LBD AU?_ which was originally posted [here](http://diaphenia.tumblr.com/post/88861933942/omg-is-it-too-much-to-ask-for-a-katniss-peeta-lbd-au). 
> 
> All mistakes are my own.

“Trust me, Catnip,” Gale said, adjusting his camera. “We’re going to take Youtube by storm.”

“Are you sure I should be the one on camera?” Katniss asked, frowning. “You’ve seen me act.” They’d been best friends for years, back to the womb, practically, and since birth they’d been interested in storytelling. There were all sorts of videos of the Everdeen/Hawthorne families putting on plays, and the few times she went in front of the camera made it clear her talents were behind the scenes. Gale, though, he could do Shakespeare and Simon, and even make her sister’s one-acts sound good.  

He laughed. “You’re terrible. But this isn’t you pretending to be someone.”

 

“I could pretend to be someone with talent.”

“No, you have talent.” Gale grabbed her hands, and looked her in the eyes. “Your talent is being likable. People will want to see you because you’re you.”

“If you insist,” she said.”

“I do. Now get ready, because you’re going live. He pressed buttons and adjusted a light. “And three… two… one.”

***

“That Peeta Mellark is the most Capitol person I’ve ever met,” she spit out on the way home from  the toasting.

Johanna laughed. “Listen, Kat, you’re an idiot.”

“Because I didn’t dance with Mellark?”

“No. Although that would’ve been amazing. Him so stiff and formal, and you so entirely uptight.” She imitated Mellark, like he was some bowtie- wearing robot.

“Save it for costume theater,” Katniss said, wondering if she could borrow a bowtie from Gale.

“I know, that was an excellent you,” Johanna said. She crossed the street without checking for traffic. “So how laid do you think Annie’s getting right now?”

“She’s on a date, don’t presume,” she answered.

“You’re telling me she’s going home with that Finnick O’Dair, legal hottie, and they’re supposed to just, what, stare off into each other’s eyes and talk?”

“This is  _Annie_.”

“Annie’s a woman too,” Johanna said. “Finnick, though. What a beautiful idiot. Did I tell you he wants to be a doctor?”

“Well that’ll be— a challenge.”

***

“Finnick’s house is the biggest house I’ve ever seen,” Katniss told Gale in hushed tones. “I think they have a _servant’s quarters_.”

“You’d know big houses,” Gale said, his voice tight. “You’ve never had to share a bedroom with three people.”

“Nonsense,” Katniss said. “I’m barely middle class.”

“Says the woman who has college mostly covered.”

“Please, student loans are going to—  _shit,_  Mellark’s coming.”

“Yeah, Mellark. Make this good, our numbers are down.” Gale hung up on her.

“Who was that?” Mellark asked, stepping out of the shadows like a total creeper.

“On the phone? No one,” she answered.

“No one was on the phone with you?” He seemed mildly perplexed.

“Aren’t you supposed to be at the wine tasting with everyone?”

“I decided not to go,” he said, toying with the remote. “I was going to bake some pear tartlets.”

That sounded good. If there was one thing Katniss liked about staying at Finnick’s, it was the food. They had a full-time chef, a beautiful but quiet redhead who brought her an endless stream of waffles and pork and hot chocolate.

No one else was ever in the kitchen longer than it took to scoop ice cream or get another glass of sherry.

“You cook?” she asked, incredulous.

“I  _bake_ ,” he said, leading her towards a stool. “You can help.”

He set her up with a knife and a pile of pears.

It was less than seven minutes before she cut herself.

Mellark went sheet-white, and dropped his bowl of flour on the counter, running to wet a towel and hold it to her hand.

It was the first time he’d touched her. Not that she was thinking about that, mostly she was concerned that if she bled out on the floor he’d probably forget to call her mom.

But his hands were surprisingly soft, holding a towel to her palm, and she felt a little dizzy. Probably from all the cologne he wore, some stupid expensive scent.

Afterwards, he still made the tartlets, and didn’t get mad when she ate three of them, giving her a dopey smile while she moaned from the goat cheese.

She neglected to mention it in her videos.  

***

The video with Gloss’s abs had gotten more hits than any so far, but Katniss was still inundated with questions about Mellark. She left up the comments but deleted the emails. The fans were lovely, but they were idiots, so quick to imagine a love triangle where there was only a woman going on a date with a guy who spent more time at the gym than at the scarf store.

Plus, he was a swimmer. How hot was that?

***

“Do you think you fall in love more than once?” Annie asked her, leaning against the chain.

Katniss pumped her legs, swinging high enough to see over their house, practically. “You will. Finnick wasn’t nearly as great as you thought. I think one of his teeth was crooked.”

“It was,” Annie said, looking like she might weep again.

She hated seeing her sister like this, reduced by this jerk. “You’re going to be fine.”

They’d done this before, for other breakups. Annie was very pretty and she’d been out with tons of people, and this was how they’d dealt with them all: climbing their childhood swingset. Johanna would’ve suggested partying, but she was irresponsible.

Katniss started dragging her feet, trying to slow down. “I think some people aren’t meant for love.”

“You’re going to fall in love. And I hope you never go through this.”

Katniss thought back over her dating history. Hardly anything worth mentioning. Even Gloss had barely bruised her soul. “We’ll see.”

***

She read and reread the Mellark’s letter in the days following his on-camera confession. He thought he loved her? He was responsible for his sister’s broken heart. She’d moved to District Four, and while she’d normally applaud an Everdeen leaving D12, she couldn’t stand it, knowing it was orchestrated by her enemy.

The paper was crinkly, the old-fashioned onion paper. He wrote everything in a strong, decisive cursive. And around the edges he’d drawn things from her life: the bow and the shirt from costume theatre, Katniss’s braid and Gale’s camera, and at the bottom, a sketch of the two of them, moments after she’d mentioned the videos, horror etched in bright ink. It reminded her of those old illuminated religious texts underneath glass at the museum, too expensive to touch.

And yet, she touched it regularly, pulling it out of her father’s plant book, rereading it again and again.

***

Working at Mellark’s company, even as an intern, was possibly the stupidest idea she’d ever had. Spending the day with him and his sister and putting pictures up on instagram was maybe stupider.

Especially since his sister basically took off an hour in, tweeting things like “mission accomplished!” and “Shipper4lyf!”

Gale was pleased, at least.  _Post more_ , he texted.  _Do you know what your numbers are every time you post on social media?_

And it was true. Her phone was buzzing almost constantly.

“They must like this,” Mellark said, after she posted a selfie of the two of them trying an amazing array of artfully designed desserts.

“Who?”

“The internet.” He laughed. “Do you know how many people follow me on twitter now? Before that, it was just family and some of my staff. Now I get hundreds of messages a week. Some of them are quite lewd.”

She didn’t want to think about Mellark getting lewd messages. That was her fault, like a lot of things these days. She and Johanna weren’t even speaking, Annie had moved away, Gale had taken that new job. And most of it was a result of her inability to conduct her life in private.

Not that she could right now anyway. With student loans looming in her future, she was depending on the ad revenue from her videos. And the viewers were hungry to see her with Mellark.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, pushing her phone back into her pocket.

“Don’t be,” he said. “I’ve learned some very creative spellings for—”

“I mean—” She pulled out her phone. One day, one day was all she asked. She turned off her phone.

“You aren’t taking pictures?” he asked. “What will the twitterers do with their Saturday?”

“I don’t care,” she said. “Bread museum next?”

***

Johanna was an unwitting porn star. And Katniss was mad; how many times had she told her sister not make stupid decisions? She was sure alcohol was involved.

Not that Gloss was blameless. Katniss had every intention of putting an arrow through that guy’s heart.

***

Mellark helped her with Johanna’s problem, of course. She somehow always knew he would.

***

She looked over at Mellark—  _Peeta_ — laying next to her in her childhood bed. Her sheets covered him, but she could see a little chest hair peeking out, and it was all she could do not to throw herself on him again.

Instead, she settled for another deep kiss.

“This hardly seems real,” he said. “Are you sure this isn’t gratitude?”

“I promise you,” she said. She thought that this might always have happened, that her fate was sealed way back at the toasting when Mellark watched her from his place on the wall, looking snobby.

She rolled back on top of him.

It was good she didn’t  _always_  have the camera on.


End file.
